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Mark Harlan

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Beschreibung

Want to play -- and win -- poker's hottest game? Turn on the TV, drop by a newsstand, or just browse the checkout your local supermarket and you'll see firsthand that Texas Hold 'Em is the poker game everyone's playing. It's a game that's deceptively simple, yet within its easy framework you'll find truth and trickery, boredom and fear, skill and misfortune--in other words, all the things that make life fun and worth living! Texas Hold'em For Dummies introduces you to the fundamental concepts and strategies of this wildly popular game. It covers the rules for playing and betting, odds, etiquette, Hold'em lingo, and offers sound advice to avoid mistakes. This handy reference guide gives new and even seasoned players winning strategies and tactics not just for playing the game, but for winning. You'll learn: * Rules and strategies for limit, no-limit, tournament, and online play * How to "play" the other players * The importance of your bankroll--recommended sizes and more * Hands you should and should not play * How to camouflage your play and dodge traps * When, who, and how to bluff * How to maximize your win with check-raising and trapping * The different approaches for playing in private games, casinos, card rooms, tournaments, and on the Internet * How to use mathematics to your advantage Texas Hold 'Em is a game of both skill and chance. But it's a game that can be beaten, and whether you want to make money, sharpen your game, or just have a good time, Texas Hold 'Em for Dummies will give you the winning edge.

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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

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Texas Hold’em For Dummies®

by Mark “The Red” Harlan

Texas Hold’em For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2006927731

ISBN: 978-0-470-04604-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

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1B/RV/QT/QY/IN

About the Author

Mark “The Red” Harlan was born in Rawlins, Wyoming, and has lived exactly the life you’d expect as a result. Armed with a degree in Applied Mathematics (from a university he loathes so much that he refuses to even utter the name), he fell headlong into a 20-year stint in the Silicon Valley’s computer industry.

Red’s professional experience includes human-interface work at Apple Computer, development of the bidding schema used by eBay, overseeing application development at Danger (makers of the T-Mobile Sidekick), as well as co-founding CyberArts Licensing (suppliers of the poker software seen on the MANSION and GamesGrid sites).

At the tender age of 8, he won a pinewood derby competition in the Cub Scouts, giving him his first heavy swig of victory that would forever warp his oh-so-soft-and-pliable mind. Under the influence of this experience, he started playing poker that same year (“might as well win money if you’re going to win”) and became good enough by 2005 to be a net money winner in that year’s World Series of Poker.

Red is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and has an extensive writing background ranging from penning InfoWorld’s Notes from the Fringe during the heyday of the Internet, to being lead author of the book he thinks everyone should own (his mom does): Winning at Internet Poker For Dummies (Wiley). Red maintains a Web site of poker articles at www.redsdeal.com and welcomes non-spam e-mail at [email protected] (be sure to include the +).

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mom, Marijane, and my brother, J. Scott Harlan, mostly because you’re two saintly islands in a world that could desperately use more of your type, and a little because you’ve put up with me all these years.

Author’s Acknowledgments

Biggest thanks of this go ’round goes to Leslie “All Ska” Dill for providing the cheerleading, support, and total lack of advice that were all precisely what I needed during the most stressful time of my life. You know what you did. I’m glad you did it.

Super thanks to my agent Margot “The Sunny Negotiator” Hutchison, for suggesting that I write this text, as well as driving through all my crazy contract requirements.

Extra thanks to Elizabeth “Exclamation Points!” Kuball for acting as my project editor and not freaking out when I say crazy things in phone conversations.

A nod and a wink to Gridders: UCD Aces, ifoundnemo23, and yanksalex. You guys are the reason I worked on poker sites for a living, I just didn’t know it at the time.

Lingering but totally necessary thanks to: Josh “Birdhead” Carter for continual computer expertise and extensive ideological support; Taqueria Eduardo (TE) for having the greatest carnitas on the planet; Max “You’re Not ‘Erik’” Francis for ongoing poker discussions, loans of his poker library, and companionship at TE; Dino for not selling Dino’s after all; Konstantin Othmer for repeated favors and questions; Fishbone for not quitting; Chris Derossi for a zillionty and one things; Radiohead for being the only band that matters; and Clarus at the Bitmap Café.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Elizabeth Kuball

Acquisitions Editor: Tracy Boggier

Editorial Program Coordinator: Hanna K. Scott

Technical Editor: Jeremy P. Bagai

Editorial Manager: Michelle Hacker

Editorial Supervisor and Reprint Editor: Carmen Krikorian

Editorial Assistant: Erin Calligan, David Lutton

Cover Photos: © Cut and Deal Ltd/Alamy

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition

Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees

Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell, Carl Byers, Denny Hager, Barry Offringa, Lynsey Osborn, Heather Ryan, Alicia South, Erin Zeltner

Proofreaders: John Greenough, Jessica Kramer, Joe Niesen, Brian H. Walls, Aptara

Indexer: Aptara

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Welcome to Texas Hold’em!

Chapter 1: A Bird’s-Eye View of Texas Hold’em

Considering Why You Want to Play

Working with Game Dynamics

Moving Up a Notch

Places You Can Play

Chapter 2: Ranking and Reading a Hand

Hand Rankings

Reading a Hand

Paying a Hand

Chapter 3: Just Tell Me How to Play: Texas Hold’em Basics

The Order of Play

The Dealer Button

Dealing the Cards

Posting Blinds

Betting

The Importance of Your Bankroll

Poker Etiquette

Part II : Texas Hold’em: Play by Play

Chapter 4: Beginning with Two

The Importance of Position

The Hands You Should Play, by Relative Position at a Table

Considering the Players in a Hand

Hands You Should and Should Not Play

Using “Fold or Raise” to Make a Call

Chapter 5: Flopping ’Til You’re Dropping

Fitting or Folding

Betting the Flop

Calling a Bet

Raising the Dough

Check-Raising

Getting a Free Card

Chapter 6: Taking Your Turn

Watching a Hand Fill Out

Keeping Track of the Action

Chapter 7: Dipping in the River

Final Betting

Showing a Hand . . . or Not?

Watching for Mistakes

Part III : Movin’ On to Higher Stakes: Advanced Strategies of Hold’em

Chapter 8: Playing the Players

Classifying Players

Looking for Tells

Zeroing In on Specifics

Chapter 9: Bluffing: When Everything Isn’t What It Appears to Be

Bluffing Basics

When to Bluff

Who to Bluff

The Semi-Bluff

Getting Caught — Now What?

Chapter 10: Maximizing Your Win: Check-Raising and Trapping

Check-Raising

Trapping through Slow Play

Maximizing Your Returns

Chapter 11: Camouflaging Your Play and Dodging Traps

Setting Expectations throughout a Game

Avoiding Pitfalls

Chapter 12: Considering Mathematics

Delving Fact from Fiction in Math and Poker

Taking a Shortcut with Math

Taking a Shortcut with Math

Using Math to Your Advantage

Chapter 13: Advancing Your Knowledge

Playing with Game Theory

Cashing In on Equity Theory

Part IV : Casinos, Card Rooms, and the Internet: Places to Play Hold’em

Chapter 14: There’s No Place Like Home: Playing in Private Games

Determining the Level and Type of Play

What You Should Give

What You Can Get

Chapter 15: Opting for the Internet: Online Games

Choosing a Site

Watching Your Back

Chapter 16: Harrah’s, Here I Come: Playing in Card Rooms

Playing in a Professional Card Room

Avoiding Common Mistakes

Trying to Score a Jackpot

Chapter 17: Competing in Tournaments

Coming to Grips with the Differences

Understanding Your Chip Position

Playing Your Way Through

Adjusting Your Play for Prizes

Part V : The Part of Tens

Chapter 18: Ten Differences between Online and Real-World Play

Not Telling in Live Action

Adjusting to Speed

Understanding Position

Taking Up Space

Getting at Your Cash

Becoming “Serious” in the Real World

Adding Up Online Mathematics

Tipping the Dealer

Changing Your Venue

Keeping Track of Your Online Cash

Chapter 19: Ten (Or So) Common Mistakes

Playing Too Many Starting Hands

Playing Tired

Playing Too Low or Too High of a Limit

Coin-Flipping Too Often in Tournaments

Ignoring What You Know about Players at Your Table

Becoming Impatient

Staying Too Long in a Tough Game

Letting Your Emotions Get the Best of You

Treating Your Internet Money Like It’s Fake

Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Improve Your Home Game

Upgrading Your Deck

Chipping Up

Chowing Down

Lighting Up

Venting It All

Trashing the Place

Wiping Out the Badness

Standardizing Chairs

Getting Tabled

Renting Your Game

Chapter 21: Ten Bad Beats

Red versus Spudnut

Woman Beaten by Madness

Hellmuth Yanks His Hair Out

Nuts about Flushes

Moneymaker

Moneymaker, Part Deux

When Wheels Go Flat

No-Limit Means No-Money

Mr. Aggressive versus Johnny Conservative

Not All Beats Are Bad

Chapter 22: Ten Things You Can Do to Improve Your Hold’em Game

Studying Your Way Up

Showing Off Your Game

Keeping Track of Your Bankroll

Exercising

Digging into the Math

Reading Poker Web Sites

Scoring a Free Magazine

Throwing in the Towel

Varying Your Opponents

Playing Other Games

Glossary

End User License Agreement

Introduction

Turn on the TV, drop by a news rack, spend ten minutes in any college watering hole, or for that matter walk into your local supermarket and you can see firsthand the stranglehold that Texas Hold’em has on the public. Twenty years ago, when I’d play Hold’em in a casino, it wasn’t unusual for people to stop and ask me about the game. (I just have one of those ask-that-guy-he-looks-harmless kind of looks, I guess.) Now my mom tells me about it.

Hold’em is a game that is deceptively simple: There are four chances to bet (pre-flop, flop, turn, and river) and five ways you can act when you do (check, bet, call, raise, or fold). Yet within that simple mechanism, you’ll find truth and trickery, boredom and fear, skill and misfortune — in other words, direct reflections of the things that make life worth living.

Hold’em is a game of both skill and chance — and infuriatingly, which of these things is the most important often changes without warning. Needless to say, this interaction is what makes the game gut wrenching at some times and great at others. If you want to find a sucker, don’t hang out at a chess table. Then again, if you can’t take being beaten by chance, it’ll be better for your blood pressure if you spend your spare time knitting instead.

Amazingly, about 95 percent of the people who play Hold’em in a professional card room (be it online or at a casino), lose money — all because of the insidious nature of the rake (a small cut of every pot the house takes). Don’t lose hope, though. Hold’em is a game that can be beaten, and by buying this book and referring to it often, you’re absolutely taking the right first step.

About This Book

This book is a grand overview of Texas Hold’em.

All Dummies books are designed as references. You don’t have to read it from beginning to end, cover to cover. My advice is to treat it like a salad bar: Load up on the things you’re most interested in, and pass on the items that seem a bit too smelly.

In some of the later chapters, I make reference to concepts and ideas I cover earlier, but the cross-referencing here is heavy. I always point you back to the fundamental concepts for brush-ups.

Don’t stress out as you read these pages. You’re not expected to remember everything and, hey, you can always come back to anything you need to be recharged on.

Conventions Used in This Book

New terms are always written in italics, with a definition that follows close on its heels. If you’re a text skimmer and find yourself running across a new word you don’t know, back up until you find the italicized word (or just look in the glossary or index). You might also see italics used for emphasis — and I can definitely get emphatic from time to time.

Monofont is used for Web sites and e-mail addresses. There aren’t a lot of site references in this book, and you certainly don’t need to have access to a computer to learn or play poker, but there are some very valuable references out in cyberspace that you need to be aware of.

The sidebars you see in gray text are not required reading for the book, but will usually relate to the text being discussed to illustrate it more fully (or in some cases, it’s just me trying to make you laugh). You’ll find a sidebar at the end of this Introduction.

What You’re Not to Read

Don’t worry about any of the paragraphs labeled with a Technical Stuff icon. Those are present merely for completeness and to give more illumination to the terminally hard core.

There are two chapters you should bypass at the start. Get a little more general theory and practice under your belt before you tackle them:

Chapter 13: This one is all about the concept of game theory and assumes you already understand the other poker concepts that are in this book.

Chapter 22: Get solid in the other topics in this book before you go out and try to get even better. Remember: You need a good foundation before you can build a fancy house.

Foolish Assumptions

I’ve made several assumptions about you as a reader — might as well clear ’em up right here to avoid any future embarrassment. I assume that

You’re familiar with playing cards. You know that a deck has 52 cards, with 4 suits and 13 cards in each suit. You know what a Jack, Queen, King, and Ace are.

You would rather beat other people in poker than have them beat you.

You have any range of poker experience going from none toa lot.

You want to improve your game, no matter how good it is, right now.

Trying in vain to get a cocktail waitress’s attention is worse than having one stop by your table when you don’t need her.

How This Book Is Organized

I’ve organized this book in parts to make it more readily digestible. Yum.

Part I: Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Welcome to Texas Hold’em!

Chapter 1 gives a synopsis of larger concepts you’ll run across in the book: how the game is played, how to play the game, and where the game is played.

The remainder of Part I talks about the hand rankings in poker, how to read a hand, betting, blinds, and etiquette. It’s this section that also talks about one of the most important facets of the game: your bankroll.

Part II: Texas Hold’em: Play by Play

This section covers, in detail, the betting and play surrounding your hole cards, the flop, the turn, and the river. It includes getting hints as to whether you’re holding a winner or a loser and subtleties like check-raising.

Part III: Movin’ On to Higher Stakes: Advanced Strategies of Hold’em

This is where things start getting really meaty. Knowing how to play other players at the table, bluffing, and trapping are all covered here. This part is also the one that deals with math (including pot odds) and game theory.

If there’s one part you should really focus on in this book, it’s this one.

Part IV: Casinos, Card Rooms, and the Internet: Places to Play Hold’em

If you can play poker someplace, I talk about it here. This is also the place where I fill you in on tournament play.

Part V: The Part of Tens

All great For Dummies books have a Part of Tens. In mine you find:

A comparison between online and real-world play

Common mistakes people make in Hold’em

Great ways to make your home game better

Bad beats (because everyone likes a good horror movie)

Ways to get better

Glossary

Most For Dummies books don’t have a glossary (and neither do lame poker books), but poker is so full of slang that I felt a glossary was almost mandatory. New expressions in the text will always be in italics followed by the definitions — the glossary wraps them all together in a nice, tidy package.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are those little pictures in the margin that flag your attention for a particular reason:

When you see this icon, you’ll find suggestions that save you time or money. When you see the Tip icon, think “clever.”

Careful! These are things that if you ignore them could cost you time or money.

When you see this icon, you’ll find information meant for the hard-core poker player. If you see something with a Technical Stuff icon that you don’t understand, don’t sweat it: You don’t need to know it to improve your game.

Items flagged with this icon are things you’ll need to know either at the poker table or later in the book.

While I highly advise against playing No-Limit ring games as a beginner, you could run across a No-Limit tournament situation when you’re just starting off. I mark No-Limit special cases with this icon.

Where to Go from Here

Where you go is totally up to you. If you’ve never played Hold’em or poker before, just carry on into Chapter 1. If you have played, but you find yourself always losing, I suggest going to Chapter 8 and reading about the other players you’re up against. If you’ve played a lot and just happened to pick up this book, either on a whim or at a friend’s house, flip to Chapter 13.

And hey, if you ever want to check me out, go to www.redsdeal.com or send an e-mail to [email protected]. I’ll respond to anything I get (as long as you aren’t a spammer).

My bankroll, this book, and you

Before I started writing this book, the last time I played Hold’em was in the 2005 World Series of Poker (money winner, thank you very much). I figured I should be playing as I wrote, to keep the game more alive.

Playing only in tournaments, over the course of three months, and never playing in tournaments where my entry fee was more than $33 (although some of my wins were to satellites in bigger-entry-fee events), I have won:

$3,596.85 in cash

A $535 satellite seat for the World Series Main Event

A $535 satellite seat for the World Series H.O.R.S.E. Event (Hold’em, Omaha, Razz [7-Card Stud Low], 7-Card Stud, 7-Card Stud Eight or Better [high hand splits with low hand])

I mention this not to brag (well, at least not too much), but to illustrate a point: Because you play Hold’em against people, the game is beatable. I won this using nothing more than years of practice combined with the exact concepts I put forward in this book.

If you practice and pay attention, you can — and will, over time — win.

Good luck to you.

Part I

Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Welcome to Texas Hold’em!

In this part . . .

Think of it as Texas Hold’em 101. I walk through the rankings of poker hands, the mechanics of Hold’em, proper poker manners, and bankroll basics. Your introductions to everything from flopping to dropping are all here.

Chapter 1

A Bird’s-Eye View of Texas Hold’em

In This Chapter

Setting your poker goal

Scoping out the game

Getting more hard core

Finding a place to play

Twenty years ago, Texas Hold’em lived in relative poker obscurity. When I was playing in casinos, it was fairly common for people to come up and ask me about the game.

A few years ago, the perfect Hold’em storm was created: Chris Moneymaker won the $10,000 Main Event of the World Series (pocketing more than $2 million off of a $40 entry fee), the World Poker Tour became the most successful program in the history of the Travel Channel, and online play became prevalent.

The poker craze has gotten so out of hand that my mom is now telling me about watching poker on TV: “It’s a lot like quilting. You really have to pay attention to catch the nuances.” Not exactly the way I look at the game, but the fact that she’s even watching says something.

In this chapter, I give you an overview of everything else you can expect from the book. Read on and then venture forth where you will.

Oh yes, and good luck to you! Let’s shuffle up and deal.

Considering Why You Want to Play

Before you even cozy up to a card table, you should ask yourself a critical question: Why am I here?

There are several possible answers to this question:

I want to make money.

I’m just out to chill with my pals and have a good time.

I want to sharpen my game.

Hold’em has just crossed into my mental radar and I want to find out more about it.

Baby needs a new pair of shoes.

Your reason may even be a combination of these things. Whatever your reason for being at the table, setting a main goal for your play and trying to reach it is critically important.

What I’m about to say will sound like I’m joking, but I assure you I’m not: You do not have to set a goal of making money at the table. The media pressure, and general public attention on Hold’em, has set up an expectation that you can, must, and should, win.

The sad fact is that roughly 95 percent of the people who play poker in professional establishments lose money. It’s a devilishly hard game to beat because of the rake (a small percentage of the pot that the house takes to run the game — see Chapter 3 for more), and because the vagaries of chance even out over time, you have to truly maximize your wins and minimize your losses, or you’ll watch your wallet slowly shrink.

It you decide from the outset that you have a goal other than winning, you won’t beat yourself up when you don’t. And believe me, no one at your table will argue with you if you don’t mind losing.

Don’t get me wrong, one of my requirements of sitting at a table is that I play to win — when I don’t, it sets me in a foul mood for hours if not days. Because you’re playing against other mortals — people full of pride and fallibility — you can beat the game. My friends and I have proven it over a mathematically significant period of time.

But winning takes perseverance, attention, and thought. Your reading this book is a great start. Keep going. Your will is already stronger than the average Friday-night player — now’s the time to get your ability up there as well.

Working with Game Dynamics

In order to begin appreciating the complexities of Hold’em, you need to understand two basic elements of the game: your position at the table, and the particular way the game is dealt.

The importance of position

When Hold’em is played in a professional card room (be it online or in a brick-and-mortar casino), a dealer button acts as the theoretical point that the cards are being dealt from. This button moves one position clockwise around the table at the conclusion of every hand.

The player in the position immediately to the left of the dealer (that is to say, clockwise) posts an automatic bet called the small blind, and the player immediately to his left (or two places to the left of the dealer) posts an automatic bet known as the big blind. These are forced bets that players must make in order to get dealt into the game. All other players get to see their hands “for free.” (To get a better understanding of the dealer button and blinds, flip to Chapter 3.)

Players decide whether to play or fold (quit) in a clockwise position, starting with the player immediately to the left (clockwise) of the big blind.

In Hold’em, your position relative to the other players is critical. When you’re in the beginning of the betting order, your cards have to be of higher quality than the cards you would normally play in later position — especially if lots of players are left in the hand — because you have no idea what evil may lurk beyond. (For more detail on playing by position, see Chapter 4.)

Likewise, if you’re riding at the back of the calling order, you can afford to play looser hands (those that aren’t as high quality) and hope to catch cards to break people’s dreams. In fact, pot odds (the amount you bet relative to the amount you would win) say that sometimes you should call, even when you have a lesser hand. (Chapter 12 gives you more detail on pot odds and all things mathematical.)

Playing move by move

Like all poker games, Hold’em has a very specific order in which the cards are dealt and played. (Chapter 2 has diagrams of Hold’em hands being dealt if you want to see what they look like in action on a table.)

Hole cards

At the start of a Hold’em hand, after the two blinds have been posted, all players are dealt two cards facedown. These are known as the hole or pocket cards. Players then make a decision to call the blinds (match the big blind), raise the blinds (increase the bet) or fold (quit playing and throw their cards away, facedown, to the middle of the table — known as mucking).

In the form of Hold’em known as Limit, the bets have to be of a certain specified amount. In No-Limit, players may bet any amount of their chips on the table. (You can find more on the different types of betting limits and how they work in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 (and on the Cheat Sheet), you can find more on the types of hands you should play as hole cards, according to your position, as well as information on how to bet them.

If you’ve just been invited to a poker party and don’t have the time to even read Chapter 4, here’s a general rule I tell newbies that works remarkably well:

If both of your hole cards are not 10s or greater (Jacks, Queens, Kings, or Aces), fold.

Yes, it sounds harsh, but it’ll keep you pretty much only playing the cards that you should — and about the right frequency of hands.

Make sure not to show your hole cards to other players at the table (even if those other players are no longer in the hand). And after you’ve looked at your cards, you should protect them from being collected by the dealer by placing an extra poker chip (or some other small object) on top of them.

The flop

After the betting action is done on the round with the hole cards (also known as pre-flop), three cards are displayed by the dealer simultaneously to the center of the poker table — this is known as the flop. At this point, each player at the table has a unique five-card poker hand consisting of his two hole cards and the three community cards.

Because of the raw number of cards involved, the flop typically gives you the general tenor of the poker hand and definitely gives you a good idea of the kind of hand to look for as a winner. For example, an all-Spade flop (especially with a lot of players still in the hand) will be hinting at a flush as a strong possibility for a winner.

Betting begins with the first person still in the hand to the left (clockwise) of the dealer button. As a general rule, you want your hand to match the flop, and you should fold if it doesn’t. (Chapter 5 is all about how to play the flop.)

In Limit play, the size of the bet you can make on the flop is identical to the amount you can make pre-flop.

The turn

After the flop betting round is completed, another community card is placed, known as the turn (or sometimes fourth street). Each of the remaining players now has a six-card poker hand made up of his two private hole cards and the four community cards. Hold’em is a game where only five cards count toward a poker hand, so everyone has a theoretical “extra” card at this point.

In Limit, the betting is now twice the amount that was bet pre- and post-flop.

Poker wags like to say, “The turn plays itself,” meaning your hand gets better and you bet it, or it doesn’t and you start giving strong thoughts to folding. This is more or less true. (You can find more details about playing the turn in Chapter 6.)

The river

After the betting round of the turn, a final community card is exposed, known as the river (sometimes called fifth street).

Each player left in the game has his final hand consisting of the best five cards of the seven available (two private hole cards and the five community cards). Players may use two hole cards along with three community cards, one hole card combined with four community cards, or just the five community cards (known as playing the board). Again, poker hands are made up of the best five cards — the other two available to any given player don’t count. There is one final round of betting. (Chapter 7 washes you with the river details.)

The showdown

The showdown is what happens after the final river bets have been placed. Although it isn’t formally required, typically the person who initiated the final round of betting is first to show her hand. The action then proceeds in a clockwise fashion with players either mucking their hands if they can’t beat the hand exposed, or showing a better hand (at which point the dealer mucks the old, “worse” hand and continues around the table for any remaining hands).

Winners and losers are determined by the standard poker hand rankings. (Chapter 2 gives more details on those if you’re not already familiar with them.)

If you’re ever unclear about who is winning a hand, just turn your cards face up and let the dealer decide. Never take a player’s word on what she has in hand until you’ve actually seen her cards with your own eyes — when you muck a hand, it’s officially dead.

Moving Up a Notch

After you have the basics of how the game is played, it’s time to move into the deeper levels of the game.

Gleaning your opponents

By far, the most important thing in a poker game is figuring out, and then playing specifically to, your opponents. When you’ve been bet into, what might be a raise against one player can be an easy and fast fold against another.

You need to factor in such questions as:

How likely is your opponent to bluff?

Does your opponent sense weakness in your betting action or in the way you’re behaving at the table?

Is your opponent’s table position influencing the way he plays?

Do the board cards hint at a good hand (or possibly a hand that has been “missed,” and is your opponent now bluffing)?

If you read no other chapter of this book, look over Chapter 8 for much more detail on playing the players at the table.

Playing the roles

When it’s your turn to bet, you really only have some subset of five choices:

Check: If no one else has bet yet

Bet: If no one else has bet

Call: If a player in front of you has bet and you want to match the amount to stay in the game

Raise: If a player in front of you has bet, but you want to increase the amount

Fold: If you’ve decided you can’t take it any more

With such limited choices, some people may think there isn’t a whole lot to the game — but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Bluffing

One of the things poker is best known for is bluffing (acting as though you have a hand that you don’t actually have, in an effort to get your opponent to fold). Bluffing is the point where your the psychological rubber hits the steely money road — and it’s the glorious difference that separates poker from nearly any other game you can mention.

Bluffing works best when:

You’re playing against a weaker opponent (who is likely to fold).

There is a large amount of money at stake, where winning the hand would make a difference to your stack.

People have reason to believe you aren’t bluffing.

The community cards hint at a hand you could have (for example, a straight or a flush) but that you actually don’t.

Bluffing is a bad idea when:

You try to get a player to fold who is very prone to calling, “just to see what you have.”

There is no other obvious reason for you to bluff.

You’re playing with people who think, “Sure, I’ll call — that guy always bluffs.”

You gain nothing (or nearly nothing) by doing so.

For more on bluffing, see Chapter 9.

Slow playing

Slow playing is the expression used to describe a player who has an extremely good hand, but doesn’t bet it strong from the start, all in an effort to squeeze more money out of his opponent.

The good news is, if you slow-play it can help camouflage your hand, leaving the unsuspecting at your disposal. The bad news is it can backfire and give your opponent a chance to draw cards that can ultimately beat you.

Chapter 10 is your slow-playing headquarters. In the name of indirection, it’s best to act like you’re actually going somewhere else as you mosey on over to Chapter 10 and take a look.

Figuring in math

If playing your opponents is the most important thing to know at a poker table, the next most important is mathematics.

The math behind poker isn’t complicated — much of it you can already do off the top of your head, assuming you know little things like the fact that a deck has 52 cards: 4 suits, each with 13 ranked cards (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace). What you can’t (or don’t want to) figure out you can memorize.

The two important things to pay attention to are the chances of making your hand on a draw (for example, you have four Clubs between your hand and the community cards through the turn — what’re the chances of seeing one on the river?), and what are the pot odds if you do (that is, how much do you win relative to how much you bet?).

I cover mathematics in detail in Chapter 12 — and I promise it’s not the yawner that it was in school.

Places You Can Play

Playing poker is easy, assuming you can find a game. Of course, thanks to the current poker craze, you can find a game nearly anywhere.

Home games

For poker, there’s truly no place like home. For one thing, there’s no rake. For another, you can slap on your Judas Priest album and bang your head — and your tablemates can just join in.

The upsides:

You get to play with your pals. (This is an upside only if you actually like your pals.)

You get to play as naked as you’d like.

You call the shots on everything.

The downsides:

Your dog might eat the food you spread out on the counter.

The equipment isn’t as nice as a professional card room.

Your place tends to get a little bit trashed.

For more on home games, take a look at Chapter 14. Chapter 20 has some ideas on making your home games better.

Casinos and poker rooms

As far as a place to play goes, you can’t beat the equipment, comfort, and cocktail waitresses of a professional card room. A professional dealer lets you focus all your attention on the game (and not having to fumble with the cards yourself), and gaming commission rules ensure that you’re getting a fair deal.

When you go to a professional card room, you should check in with the board person (the person responsible for the waiting lists) to find out the limits and games that are being spread. The floorperson will seat you and help you get your chips.

Chapter 16 has the rundown on professional card rooms, and hey, don’t forget to tip your dealer!

Online

The biggest poker room in the world is no farther away than your computer. All you need to do is transfer money from your bank account to a third-party transfer agent, and then from there to the poker site of your choice. (This is a process similar to using PayPal for buying stuff off of eBay.)

As soon as you have money in your account, you can be off and playing. The good news is, the rakes tend to be less and there are more bonuses than at brick-and-mortar card rooms. The bad news is, the physical absence of a player at your table makes reading tells much harder.

See Chapter 15 for more on the online world. Chapter 18 details some differences between the online and “real” worlds. And hey, if you really get into playing online, you can just pick up a copy of Winning at Internet Poker For Dummies (published by Wiley), which I wrote with Chris Derossi. It dovetails almost perfectly with this book.

Chapter 2

Ranking and Reading a Hand

In This Chapter

Figuring out poker hands, from the lowly to the royal

Delving into the hand that’s been dealt

Scoring a pot

The main thing to remember about Hold’em is that it’s still just poker. If you already know poker’s hand rankings, you’re already all over what beats what in Hold’em.

If you’ve played poker but not Hold’em, skip ahead to the “Reading a Hand” section of this chapter. There you get a feel for how to tell the value of a hand as well as the board.

Hand Rankings

When a Hold’em hand is fully dealt, you have ownership of seven cards — your two hole cards, along with the five community cards. Your poker hand is the best five cards of the seven. The other two cards don’t count toward the hand in any way.

Figure 2-1 illustrates the way hands are ranked. Hold’em uses exactly the same hand rankings as all other standard poker games, and — assuming you’re not playing at Crazy Larry’s — there aren’t any wild cards.

In the following sections, I walk through these hand rankings from lowest to highest. At a card table, whenever you get one of these hands for the very first time in your life, be sure to squeal with glee. It doesn’t make your hand any better, but it’s good entertainment for everyone else at an otherwise monotonous table.

Figure 2-1: Rankings of poker hands, best to worst.

High card only — no pairs

The technical name for this hand is “bad.” It’s any hand were you have, in a word, nothing. If the board shows 10 5 4 3 K and you hold A Q, your hand is A-K-Q-10-5. Rank order of the unrelated cards determines the winner (Aces are high). So this hand beats A-K-Q-10-4 (all other cards tie, and 5 beats 4) but would lose to A-K-Q-J-4 (first three cards tie, but J beats 10).

One pair

This hand is two cards of the same rank with three unrelated cards. If two players hold the same pair, then the unrelated cards are compared to determine a winner.

Two pair

In this hand, you have two cards of the same rank along with two cards of another rank and an unrelated card. If multiple players have two pair, the high single pair of all the two-pair hands wins. If players have identical high pairs, the highest ranked second pair wins (K-K-Q-Q-4 beats K-K-7-7-A). If multiple players have identical two-pair hands, the person with the highest unrelated card (the kicker) wins (3-3-2-2-K beats 3-3-2-2-9).

Three-of-a-kind

This hand is three of one rank matched with two unrelated cards. Three-of-a-kind is also called a set or trips.

Straight

Five cards, not of the same suit, ranked in sequence are considered a straight. A-K-Q-J-10 (known in poker slang as Broadway) is the highest straight. A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest (called a wheel). Straights are always called by their high card, for example “7-high-straight.” The highest ranked straight wins.

The wheel is the only case in Hold’em where the Ace is low. An A-2-3-4-5 straight is only 5-high, not Ace-high.

Straights are not allowed to wrap around. Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight — it’s a hand that is Ace-King-high.

How rare is a royal flush?

Assuming all seven cards get dealt out and you get to choose the five best (which is the way a full Hold’em hand is dealt), on average you’ll see one royal flush every 30,940 hands. A royal flush on the board (meaning the five up cards in the middle of the table only) will happen only once every 649,740 hands. Better start playin’.

Flush

In this hand, you have five non-straight cards of the same suit. 2 3 5 8 10 is a “10-high flush.” The highest ranked flush wins.

All suits have the same value. One suit is not worth more than any other (unlike a game like bridge where spades outrank hearts).

Full house

This is three-of-a-kind matched with a pair. A full house (also called a full boat or just simply boat) is always ranked and called by the three-of-a-kind rank first, so 5-5-5-Q-Q is called, “fives full of Queens.”

Four-of-a-kind

As you can probably guess, this hand is four cards of one rank (also known as quads) with another loner. If two players have the same four-of-a-kind, the highest fifth card determines the hand.

Straight flush

This is five cards that are both straight and flush. Q J 10 9 8 is a “Queen-high straight flush.” A straight flush wheel (a steel wheel) is the lowest straight flush.

Royal flush

A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit is called a royal flush, but really, it’s just a fancy name for the highest possible straight flush.

Reading a Hand

If you’ve never played Hold’em, you’ll find that getting used to how to read a hand takes a while. Don’t panic, just pick the best five cards of the seven.

Straightforward hands

Some hands are pretty obvious. For example in Figure 2-2, Dean has a pair of Aces, Jerry has a pair of Kings. The pair of Aces win.

Figure 2-2: A pair of Aces beat a pair of Kings.

Figure 2-3 shows two players with a straight. David has the high end with 10-9, Tina has the bottom end with 5-4. David wins, Tina complains. A lot.

Figure 2-3: 10-high straight beats 8-high straight.

Figure 2-4 is an example of two people playing the board. Although Gilligan managed to get a pair of Jacks early on, and Ginger also ended up with an Ace-high straight, the highest hand, for both players, is the flush on the board.

Figure 2-4: Both players have a Queen-high flush.

Subtle hands

These hands are the ones that have the ability to jump out and bite you if you’re not careful.

Take a look at Figure 2-5. The river card is key here. It made Virginia’s set of Queens, completed Robert’s King-high straight, but made Scott’s Queen-high flush.

Figure 2-5: Scott wins with a Queen-high flush.

Consider Figure 2-6 carefully and see if you can figure out what each player has before reading ahead.

Figure 2-6: Which hand is best?

John had two pair — Aces and Queens — with a 10 kicker. This hand is the best starting hand of the three players, although it never improved. Teddy had a King-high straight on fourth street with the hand improving to flush in the river. Jackie, though, is the big winner with a full house, twos full of Queens.

Counterfeiting

I’ve played poker more than 30 years, and after all this time, counterfeiting is the one thing about the game that has the ability to drive me insane. Counterfeiting is what happens when a card, or series of cards, hits the board that somehow spoils your hand, or takes away from its inherent value.

For example if you were dealt pocket Aces, and the board eventually showed 2-3-4-5-6, your A-2-3-4-5 straight was counterfeited by a 6-high-straight on the board.

More diabolical versions of counterfeiting exist, though. Figure 2-7 shows an actual tournament hand I was in.

Figure 2-7 shows the final hand of a charity tournament, one card away from the finish. The winner would take home a money prize; the other two would get all-you-can-eat servings of crow in extra-large doggie bags. Because I knew both players were going to be involved in the hand, and we were right on the money cutoff, I was “forced” to play if I wanted a taste of the prizes (more on tournament dynamics in Chapter 17). All players had bet all their chips at this point, and the cards were exposed.

Figure 2-7: A board ready for Red’s counterfeit river card.

The diagram is frozen in time at the turn. Silent Bob is holding two pair, Jacks and 7s and being real quiet about it (only because he’s losing badly and only one of two 7s left in the deck will save him). Big Tuffy is going wild, thinking he’s essentially locked the game as long as an Ace doesn’t hit on the river.

Examine the hand and consider this: I win this hand (yay!), but I do not draw an Ace on the river. How do I win? How can I win?

The river card, Q, hits the board. Big Tuffy’s friends went wild. They thought he had won the hand, and in fact the dealer began pushing the monster pot in his direction. I stopped her and explained the board. Forget what I said then — the short version is Big Tuffy had been counterfeited.

The river Queen gives Silent Bob two pair, and the lowest hand of the three players — Queens and Jacks with a 7 kicker. It gives Big Tuffy the same two pair, but a better hand with Queens and Jacks and a 9 kicker. Your hero (that would be me), however, was handed Queens and Jacks with an Ace kicker to win!

After some soul searching, and a deeper understanding of just exactly what the phrase “best hand wins” means, Big Tuffy and his pals turned a whiter shade of pale about the same time as my bank account turned a deeper shade of green. (For information on how to corral dealers as they start walking off into the weeds, as happened here, have a peek at Chapter 3.) Hey, I said that counterfeiting drives me insane; I didn’t say that it stops me from playing.